This study explores how various experimental factors, such as temperature, viscosity, and stirring speed, affect Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) materials' structural properties and electroneutrality. These factors influence key attributes like sodium ions, vacancies, and water content, which is governed by electroneutrality. Higher temperatures, faster stirring, low viscosity, and high Na+ concentration enhance Na+ incorporation because of the sufficient Na+ supplement, leading to a densified monoclinic structure with fewer vacancies and lower water content. In contrast, lower temperatures, slow stirring, high viscosity, and low Na+ concentration lead to less monoclinic or cubic structures with more vacancies and higher water content. Adding carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) increases viscosity, enables lower Na+ diffusion, and renders less Na+ incorporation. As a result, an intermediate structure forms with balanced Na+ and water content, bridging the cubic and monoclinic forms. The electrochemical performance of cubic structures (PW-Cub) is superior, demonstrating better C-rate performance with distinct charge-discharge plateaus than monoclinic structures acquired at high temperatures (PW-Mc-HT). The PW-Mc-HT shows the mixed redox reactions between Fe2+/Fe3+ and Mn2+/Mn3+. This study reveals the root cause for the variation in PBAs' chemical composition and provides a guideline for synthesizing high-quality PBAs for sodium-ion batteries.

O3-type layered oxide materials are regarded as optimal cathode candidates for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) on account of their exceptional energy density. Nevertheless, the rapid decline in capacity resulting from the instability of the interface structure represents a significant challenge to the practical implementation of these materials. In this study, we propose an innovative method to modify the O3-type NaNi0.33Fe0.33Mn0.33O2 (NFM) cathode material by applying a cross-linked polymer (CLP) coating. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis demonstrates that the CLP coating effectively inhibits the decomposition of the cathode electrolyte interface (CEI) membrane in the course of cycling, leading to a substantial improvement in the stability of the electrode material's interface. Moreover, the oxygen-containing groups within the coating can compete with propylene carbonate (PC) solvent molecules in the electrolyte for Na+ coordination, reducing the coordination between Na+ and PC molecules. This process facilitates more efficient diffusion of Na+, thereby enhancing the rate performance. Consequently, CLP-coated NFM (NFM@CLP) materials exhibit enhanced electrochemical performance. After 300 cycles at 25 °C, NFM@CLP retains 72.36% of its capacity, compared to 62.59% for pristine NFM. Even at elevated temperatures (65 °C), the capacity retention of NFM@CLP remains high at 63.84% after 200 cycles, whereas pristine NFM drops to 3.65%. In full-cell tests (vs hard carbon), the NFM@CLP also exhibits better capacity retention (85.07% after 150 cycles). This study offers an effective and simple approach to enhancing the capacity retention and rate performance of O3-type layered materials in SIBs, providing unique insights into advanced energy storage materials.

This paper investigates the hydrated and dehydrated phases of cubic and monoclinic Na2Mn[Fe(CN)6], focusing on the impact of crystal water on their electrochemical, structural, and volumetric properties. Interstitial and coordination water impact these materials differently. Removing water increases the coulombic attraction between Na+ and N-, reducing LMn-N-C and LFe-C-N angles and decreasing volume. The densification effect is more pronounced in the monoclinic sample due to its higher sodium content. The dehydrated cubic sample (PWDH-C) has better cycling stability than the monoclinic sample (PW-DH-MC). The reduced cycling stability in PWDH-MC is due to its denser rhombohedral structure, resulting from its higher sodium content, which affects the LMn-N-C and LFe-C-N angles. Dehydration triggers Jahn-Teller distortion in Mn3+ ions, inducing reversible rhombohedral-to-tetragonal phase transitions during cycling. After 200 cycles, the capacity retention of the dehydrated cubic sample improves to 59 % when exposed to air and reabsorbing moisture, compared to 50 % in its dehydrated state. Similarly, the dehydrated monoclinic sample shows an increase in retention to 28 %, up from 20 % in its dry condition. Additionally, PW-DH-C experiences lower volumetric changes during cycling, attributed to fewer sodium ions and more Fe(CN)64- vacancies. These findings highlight water's crucial role in optimizing Na2Mn[Fe(CN)6] performance for practical applications.

The outstanding cycling performance of sodium manganese hexacyanoferrate (NaMnHCF) was obtained by applying NaPF6/KPF6 mixed salt solution as an electrolyte. NaMnHCF and KMnHCF are composited at the nanoscale to form a high-quality NaMnHCF/KMnHCF composite, enabling an exceptional cycling performance with more than 90% capacity retention after 500 cycles. The enhanced cycling performance is attributed to the high-quality NaMnHCF/KMnHCF composition and the pillar effect of KMnHCF. Furthermore, the superlattice of NaKMnHCF was also discovered after cycling in the mixed electrolyte, which may be partly responsible for the acquired stability. The crystal structure of the cathode material remains stable during cycling, and the cathode-electrolyte interface is more resistant to corrosion in the NaPF6/KPF6 mixed electrolyte. Our work reports an effective strategy to achieve high-quality NaMnHCF/KMnHCF composites and articulates the mechanism of the stabilizing effect.

Sodium manganese hexacyanoferrate (NaMnHCF) has emerged as a research hotspot among Prussian blue analogs for sodium-ion battery cathode materials due to its advantages of high voltage, high specific capacity, and abundant raw materials. However, its practical application is limited by its poor electronic conductivity. In this study, we aim to solve this problem through the in situ growth of NaMnHCF on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using a simple coprecipitation method. The results show that the overall electronic conductivity of NaMnHCF is significantly improved after the introduction of CNTs. The NaMnHCF@10%CNT sample presents a specific capacity of 90 mA h g−1, even at a current density of 20 C (2400 mA g−1). The study shows that the optimized composite exhibits a superior electrochemical performance at different mass loadings (from low to high), which is attributed to the enhanced electron transport and shortened electron pathway. Surprisingly, the cycling performance of the composites was also improved, resulting from decreased polarization and the subsequent reduction in the side reactions at the cathode/electrolyte interface. Furthermore, we revealed the evolution of potential plateau roots from the extraction of crystal water during the charge–discharge process of NaMnHCF based on the experimental results. This study is instructive not only for the practical application of NaMnHCF materials but also for advancing our scientific understanding of the behavior of crystal water during the charge–discharge process.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are a promising alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for next-generation energy storage. Despite the considerable progress in LIBs, their specific energy density and capacity are nearing theoretical limits, necessitating the exploration of new materials for anodes and cathodes. Li-S batteries, recognized for their high theoretical specific capacity and energy density, have gained extensive attention due to the abundance and energy potential of sulfur. However, their commercialization faces significant challenges, including the insulating nature of sulfur, volume expansion, polysulfide shuttle effects, and dendrite formation at the anode. Recent efforts to address these issues have focused on four main strategies: cathode modification, anode protection, separator modification, and novel electrolyte development. This review emphasizes the role of separator modification in Li-S batteries, a concept introduced to improve cyclic performance and rate capabilities by inhibiting the polysulfide shuttle. This review deals with the development of separator modification with various material compositions reported in the last decade for high-performance Li-S batteries. The review provides a detailed discussion and analysis of cathode-facing surface modified separators based on carbonaceous materials and their composites with inorganic, polymers; and natural clay materials; and their contributions to solving the severe issues in Li-S batteries. This review contributes to the ongoing discourse on improving energy storage devices, mainly focusing on Li-S battery technology and its potential to meet the demands of high energy storage applications.

Sodium manganese hexacyanoferrate (NaMnHCF) is an attractive candidate as a cathode material for sodium-ion batteries due to its low cost and high energy density. However, its practical application is hindered by poor electrochemical stability caused by the Jahn-Teller effect of Mn and the unstable structure of NaMnHCF. Here, this paper aims to address this issue by introducing highly stable AMnHCF (where A = K, Rb, or Cs) through a facile method to composite with NaMnHCF. The findings reveal that all AMnHCFs have a "pillar effect" on the crystal structure of NaMnHCF. It is observed that the degree of pillar effect varies depending on the specific AMnHCF used. The less electrochemically inactive the alkaline ion is and the greater the degree of compositing with NaMnHCF, the more dramatic the pillar effect. KMnHCF shows limited pillar effect due to its rough composition with NaMnHCF and the loss of K+ upon (de)intercalation. RbMnHCF has lower electrochemical activity and can be better composited with NaMnHCF. On the other hand, CsMnHCF exhibits the strongest pillar effect due to the inactivation of Cs+ and the excellent coherent structure formed by CsMnHCF and NaMnHCF. This research provides a new perspective on stabilizing NaMnHCF with other alkaline elements.

Recently, the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) and its different variants have spread rapidly across the world. Early-stage detection of COVID-19 is a challenging task due to the limited availability of Covid testing kits to the public. Conventionally, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the reliable test for the detection of COVID-19 which is time-consuming and costly. The aim of this work is to identify the COVID-19 symptoms with the help of a deep learning algorithm using chest X-Ray images. In order to improve the quality of chest X-Ray images, authors have further modified the pre-trained model with some extra CNN layers, such as the first layer is the average pooling layer and the other two are dense layers followed by ReLU with softmax activation function. The experimental results have been carried out on publicly available chest X-Ray images of COVID-19 to mark COVID-19 patients as positive and negative datasets. For evaluation purpose, we have used benchmark of pre-trained models such as VGG-16 (Visual Geometry Group), VGG19, Xception, ResNet152, ResNet152v2, ResNet101, ResNet101v2, DenseNet201, DenseNet169 and DenseNet121. On the benchmark datasets, viz. COVID-19 X-Ray images, an average improvement in terms of training/validation accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-scores scores were 95%, 94%, 99/88%, 99/88%, and 93/92% respectively. The results provide sufficient evidence that deep learning can be used efficiently for the detection of COVID-19 symptoms.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of leadership on the operational performance of food processing SMEs in Punjab, Pakistan. This study also examines whether the organizational culture plays a mediating role in the relationship between leadership and operational performance. Previous studies explained that visionary leadership and dynamic organizational culture are the key factors for the organization’s success that provide a competitive environment and had an impact on the organization’s performance. The data were collected from 288 food processing SMEs through purposive with snowball sampling techniques. A structured questionnaire was employed for data collection from the Owners/Managers of the food processing SMEs. The Partial Least Square (PLS) approach was used to test the proposed hypothesis. The empirical investigations show that leadership is positively related to organizational culture and operational performance. The study also found a mediating role of organizational culture between leadership and operational performance by adopting the Hayes process of mediation. The findings of the study will help food manufacturers in improving the operational performance of their SMEs. Moreover, by practicing transformational leadership styles, and adopting the quality culture, SMEs can get a competitive advantage.

Nitrogen doping with carbon material substantially enhances the electrochemical properties in lithium and sodium batteries. However, direct treating at high temperature fails to create high nitrogen content, thus limiting the morphological as well as electrochemical performances. Herein, a hydrophilic material xanthan and acid‐treated melamine are doped by a dual process of hydrothermal and carbonization, enabling high nitrogen content (28%) carbon spheres. The highly defected nanosphere structures (ID/IG = 1.14) enable the high specific surface area of 388 m2 g−1, which facilitates a large number of lithium/sodium ions and gives rise to remarkable electrochemical performances. When applied as an anode, the nitrogen‐doped porous sphere xanthan (NPS‐XAN) delivers a superior discharge capacity of 390 mAh g−1 after 1000 cycles at a current density of 1 A g−1 for lithium anode and maintains a discharge capacity of 262 mAh g−1 after 2800 cycles at 1 A g−1 for sodium anode. This work signifies superior capacity anodes for Li/Na‐ion batteries and contributes to the long‐life cycling energy application.

Single image super-resolution (SISR) is an image processing technique, and its main target is to reconstruct the high-quality or high-resolution (HR) image from the low-quality or low-resolution (LR) image. Currently, deep learning-based convolutional neural network (CNN) image super-resolution approaches achieved remarkable improvement over the previous approaches. Furthermore, earlier approaches used hand designed filter to upscale the LR image into HR image. The design architecture of such approaches is easy, but it introduces the extra unwanted pixels in the reconstructed image. To resolve these issues, we propose novel deep learning-based approach known as Lightweight deep CNN-based approach for Single Image Super-Resolution (LDC SIR). In this paper, we propose a new architecture which is inspired by ResNet with Inception blocks, which significantly drop the computational cost of the model and increase the processing time for reconstructing the HR image. Compared with the other state of the art methods, LDCSIR achieves better performance in terms of quantitively (PSNR/SSIM) and qualitatively.

Recently, image super-resolution techniques used in convolutional neural networks (CNN) have led to remarkable performance in the research area of digital image processing applications and computer vision tasks. Convolutional layers stacked on top of each other can design a more complex network architecture, but they also use more memory in terms of the number of parameters and introduce the vanishing gradient problem during training. Furthermore, earlier approaches of single image super-resolution used interpolation technique as a pre-processing stage to upscale the low-resolution image into HR image. The design of these approaches is simple, but not effective and insert the newer unwanted pixels (noises) in the reconstructed HR image. In this paper, authors are proposing a novel single image super-resolution architecture based on synchronized depthwise separable convolution with Dense Skip Connection Block (DSCB). In addition, unlike existing SR methods that only rely on single path, but our proposed method used the synchronizes path for generating the SISR image. Extensive quantitative and qualitative experiments show that our method (SDCN) achieves promising improvements than other state-of-the-art methods.

Highly efficient microporous composite separator based on polyvinylidene fluoride-hexafluoro propylene (PVDF-HFP) and colloidal La2O3 (C-La2O3) is prepared for high-temperature lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) through facile slide coating technique. The presence of colloidal La2O3 nanocrystals in PVDF-HFP significantly enhances the mechano-thermal stability of separator due to the robust microporous structure. Moreover, the C-La2O3 nanocrystals also help in improving the conductivity of lithium ions by incorporating additional Li+ conduction pathways due to the Lewis acid-base interaction between La atom and PVDF-HFP chain. The PVDF-HFP/C-La2O3 separator owns minimal shrinkage of 6.2% after thermal annealing for 1 hour at 150 degrees C. The as-developed separator exhibits high wettability and electrolyte uptake (238%) due to the robust microporous structure and low crystallinity, which leads towards high ionic conductivity (0.75 x 10(-3) S cm(-1)). The cells developed with PVDF-HFP/C-La2O3 separator deliver the discharge capacity of 158.2 mAh g(-1) at room temperature, 163 mAh g(-1) on direct testing at 80 degrees C, 130.9 mAh g(-1) of batteries assembled with annealed separators at 150 degrees C for 5 hours, and 140.3 mAh g(-1) of annealed batteries at 150 degrees C for 5 hours at 0.5 C after 100 cycles with a capacity retention of approximate to 98%. The PVDF-HFP/C-La2O3 separator is a promising substitute of commercial separators with remarkable performances for high-temperature LIBs.

Recent research on single-image super-resolution (SISR) using deep convolutional neural networks has made a breakthrough and achieved tremendous performance. Despite their significant progress, numerous convolutional neural networks (CNN) are limited in practical applications, owing to the requirement of the heavy computational cost of the model. This paper proposes a multi-path network for SISR, known as multi-path deep CNN with residual inception network for single image super-resolution. In detail, a residual/ResNet block with an Inception block supports the main framework of the entire network architecture. In addition, remove the batch normalization layer from the residual network (ResNet) block and max-pooling layer from the Inception block to further reduce the number of parameters to preventing the over-fitting problem during the training. Moreover, a conventional rectified linear unit (ReLU) is replaced with Leaky ReLU activation function to speed up the training process. Specifically, we propose a novel two upscale module, which adopts three paths to upscale the features by jointly using deconvolution and upsampling layers, instead of using single deconvolution layer or upsampling layer alone. The extensive experimental results on image super-resolution (SR) using five publicly available test datasets, which show that the proposed model not only attains the higher score of peak signal-to-noise ratio/structural similarity index matrix (PSNR/SSIM) but also enables faster and more efficient calculations against the existing image SR methods. For instance, we improved our method in terms of overall PSNR on the SET5 dataset with challenging upscale factor 8× as 1.88 dB over the baseline bicubic method and reduced computational cost in terms of number of parameters 62% by deeply-recursive convolutional neural network (DRCN) method.

It is a great challenge to develop the highly efficient cathode material for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) at intermediate temperature, while high electronic conductivity, good thermal and chemical compatibility, and superior electrochemical performance of the AB2O4‐type spinel is attractive electrode material. Herein, the NiCo2O4 spinel is developed using the glycine‐nitrate process (GNP) method as a cathode material for IT SOFCs. The characterization of the phase structure, microstructure, and electrochemical performance are done using X‐ray diffraction, scanning electronic microscopy, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results show that NiCo2O4 exhibited a single cubic structure and good chemical compatibility with a ((Sc2O3)0.1(CeO2)0.01(ZrO2)0.89) (ScCeSZ) electrolyte material at 900 °C for 10 h. Furthermore, a NiO–YSZ anode |NiO–YSZ, AFL | ScCeSZ |NiCo2O4 SOFC cell exhibits the maximum power density (MDP) of 0.73 and 1.04 W cm−2 at 750 and 800 °C, respectively. These results recommend the spinel‐structured NiCo2O4 is a potential cathode material for IT SOFC application.

A highly efficient multifunctional polyvinylidene fluoride//carbon-molybdenum disulfide (PVDF//C-MoS2) interlayer is developed by direct deposition on sulfur cathode through facile slide coating method for Li-S batteries. The as-developed PVDF//C-MoS(2)interlayer exhibits the polysulfide adsorption and trapping capabilities, which reduces the shuttling effects and also slows down the self-discharge in Li-S batteries. The first composite layer (C-MoS2) on the cathode maximizes the level of lithium polysulfide adsorption owing to the strong dipolar interaction of Mo-S on the polarized surface of polysulfide species. Moreover, the PVDF layer physically traps/capture the remaining polysulfide species with its interconnected microstructure for the reutilization as active material in the cathode. The Li-S batteries based on interlayers deliver the discharge capacity of1086 mAh g(-1)at1 Cwith3.0 mg cm(-2)sulfur loading and show capacity decay of0.04 %per cycle after1500 cycles. In contrast, the Li-S batteries without interlayer merely maintain the discharge capacities of423 mAh g(-1)at1 Cwith3.0 mg cm(-2)sulfur loading and show severe capacity decay (0.12 %) after505cycles. The Li-S batteries also depict the remarkable cyclic performances with as-developed interlayer for high sulfur loading cathodes and efficiently slowdowns the self-discharge even after resting for a long time.

With high energy density and low cost, lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries own the potential to be next-generation electrochemical storage/conversion devices. However, their cyclic stability and life span are considerably impaired by polysulfide shuttling and self-discharge. Here, we design a microfiber glass filter-molybdenum disulfide/carbon-titanium nitride (mu FGF-MoS2/C-TiN) interlayer for suppressing the shuttle of polysulfides and selfdischarge of Li-S batteries. TiN in the interlayer molecularly captures high-order polysulfide Li2S8 with an adsorption energy up to -6.48 eV, the largest high-order polysulfide absorption value ever reported. The mu FGF-MoS2 layer mechanically seizes polysulfides with interconnected torturous mesopores by functioning as a molecular sieve. With a sulfur loading of 4.5 mg cm(-2), the Li-S batteries based on mu FGF-MoS2/C-TiN exhibit remarkable over-1000-cycle stability with an only 0.05% capacity decay per cycle and deliver an initial discharge capacity of 1000 mAh g(-1) at 1C. The self-discharge is alleviated with an insignificant 10.3% capacity loss after a 30-day rest.

As the primary anode for both lithium- and sodium-ion batteries, carbonaceous anodes store more energy and own a higher rate capacity through nitrogen doping. Nevertheless, achieving a high nitrogen content in a carbonaceous anode is challenging because it tends to result in anode instability, owing to high-level structural defects. Here, by doping biotic ispaghula with nitrogen from melamine through hydrothermal and carbonization treatments, we design and prepare a nitrogen-enriched carbonaceous anode with a record-high 30 % nitrogen content primarily in pyridinic and pyrrolic forms. The anode owns a self-supported architecture that contains a highly-defected (I-D : I-G=1.34) nanosheet structure sandwiched and supported with carbon nanospheres. Through surface defects, Li and Na ions are stored and transported efficiently in both highly doped graphitic carbon and amorphous carbon. In situ Raman spectroscopy reveals that amorphous carbon can be crystallized in the Li storage process to contribute reversible capacity. The highly doped anode delivers capacities of 551 mAh g(-1)for 500 cycles for lithium storage and 278 mAh g(-1)for 2000 cycles of sodium storage at a current density of 1 A g(-1), surpassing those of the-state-of-the-art at an identical current density and with the same cycle number.

Poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene)-lanthanum oxide//poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene)-hexagonal boron nitride (PVH-LaO//PVH-BN) bi-layer separators are developed through a two-step blading approach. La2O3 in the PVH matrix enhances the Li+ conduction by providing extra Li+ conducting pathways owing to the Lewis acid-base interaction of La atoms with the PVH chains, leading to a high lithium-ion transference number of 0.72 and ionic conductivity of 7.5 x 10(-4) S cm(-1) at room temperature. Moreover, the strong interfacial interaction between h-BN and PVH in the bi-layer separator enhances the thermal and mechanical stabilities of the separator. Batteries based on lithium iron phosphate and the bi-layer separator deliver a discharge capacity of 158 mAh g(-1) at 0.5 C after 100 cycles and a rate capacity of 81 mAh g(-1) at 10 C after 1500 cycles.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are promising energy storage devices for integrating renewable resources and high power applications, owing to their high energy density, light weight, high flexibility, slow self-discharge rate, high rate charging capability, and long battery life. LIBs work efficiently at ambient temperatures, however, at high-temperatures, they cause serious issues due to the thermal fluctuation inside batteries during operation. The separator is a key component of batteries and is crucial for the sustainability of LIBs at high-temperatures. The high thermal stability with minimum thermal shrinkage and robust mechanical strength are the prime requirements along with high porosity, ionic conductivity, and electrolyte uptake for highly efficient high-temperature LIBs. This Review deals with the recent studies and developments in separator technologies for high-temperature LIBs with respect to their structural layered formation. The recent progress in monolayer and multilayer separators along with the developed preparation methodologies is discussed in detail. Future challenges and directions toward the advancement in separator technology are also discussed for achieving remarkable performance of separators in a high-temperature environment.